Capillary electrophoresis coupled to time of flight-mass spectrometry of therapeutic peptide hormones.

We have established a method for separation and characterization of a series of peptide hormones of pharmaceutical interest and wide therapeutical use by capillary electrophoresis-electrospray-mass spectrometry (CE-ES-MS) using a sheath flow interface. Several parameters were systematically investigated, such as concentration of the electrolyte, organic solvent and sheath liquid composition, gas flow rates and capillary position. Moreover, limits of detection, linearity, repeatability and day-to-day reproducibility of the proposed method were studied in order to obtain the main quality parameters.